Photo: Landus Cooperative SoyPlus Plant Manager, Randy Daniel, conducts tour of expansion to soybean processing plant
A $27 million dollar addition to the SoyPlus soybean processing plant at Landus Cooperative in Ralston has been operational off and on for about two weeks now, and is ready to gear up to 24-hour production. The administration and staff are proud to see this expansion that will bring about a nearly 50 percent increase in production of their dairy feed ingredient, bypass protein SoyPlus. Landus CEO, Milan Kucerak, explained the importance of this animal feed ingredient that bolsters the world-wide food chain. He says in one of the cows’ stomachs, the rumen, there is what they call a bug that eats the protein from the food the cow ingests. The nutritional value is then lost to the animal, so the bypass protein is introduced to make it harder for those bugs to digest.
The process for creating the meal is complicated, but the staff breaks it down to the basics saying, “We clean em, crack em, heat em and squeeze em. Kucerak said the difference between their process and others is that they rely on an all-natural method of removing the soybean oil where others use hexane, a chemical close to the composition of octane, to process the beans into meal.
Not only does this make them the largest mechanical crush facility in the United States, Kucerak said their process also ensures consistency. He added that in that respect, they are like the Coke or Pepsi’s of the dairy industry.
And SoyPlus Plant Production Manager, Randy Daniel, says they expect to be at full capacity in both the original and expansion plants by February or March of next year.
We will bring you more in upcoming broadcasts about the local and economic impact this expansion has not only for Ralston, but for cooperative farmer/owners, the area workforce and world-wide dairy production.
